Video on Demand — December 2016
Video pick of the month
American Honey
In American Honey, filmmaker Andrea Arnold seizes on these same feelings of indigence, abandon and striving with her visceral road odyssey, which follows 18-year-old Star (Sasha Lane) as she journeys through Kansas, Texas, and North Dakota, in a van full of itinerant youth with tattoos and flat-brimmed caps, selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door and in truck stop parking lots. The British director’s fourth feature finds the breakout actress Lane, who Arnold discovered on a beach during spring break, starring opposite Shia LaBeouf, who plays Jake, the lead salesman in the magazine crew. Jake and Star first kiss on a sprawling front lawn in a well-to-do neighborhood in Kansas City. Jake’s supposed to be teaching her how to sell. They first fuck in Texas in a car they steal from some oil-rich cowboys after Star sells them all magazine subscriptions. It’s a love triangle of sorts as Jake is also the errand boy and maybe boytoy of the ultra-bitch boss Krystal (Riley Keogh), who rides ahead of the crew in a convertible. The rest of the mag crew riding in the van and rooming together in motels were street cast like Lane. The textures of their different accents and hip hop meets skater fashions brings an authenticity to the movie. (Whitney Mallett)
